FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 259 



The Iowa counties with county experts, namely, Clinton, Scott, Mus- 

 catine, Montgomery, Black Hawk, Wright, Greene, Henry and Clay, this 

 year have exhibits in the agricultural building. The exhibits are nice 

 enough, but are practically the same sort of thing as the county exhibits 

 of old days. The best exhibits are the county experts themselves. They 

 are all bright, wide-awake young men of practical experience. The 

 farmers passing through the agricultural building are finding it worth 

 while to ask them questions. They are especially well up on such prob- 

 lems as hog cholera, alfalfa seeding, and insect pests. We hope that 

 farmers from counties having no experts have talked with these men, so 

 as to get some idea of what a county expert may be worth. There is a 

 widespread opinion that county experts, being young fellows from college, 

 are impractical men who have little information of value under actual 

 farm conditions. In reality, the county experts are educated farm boys 

 who have grown into their positions as county experts in a very prac- 

 tical way. • 



Many housewives stopped to study a display made by the pure food 

 commission, showing the comparative values of foods with milk at eight 

 cents per quart. The equivalent of a quart of milk in food values was 

 exhibited with figures showing the cost. A quart of milk, according to 

 the commission, is equal to a pound of cheese costing 9.5 cents; ten 

 eggs costing 29 cents; eleven ounces of beef steak costing 15 cents; six 

 and a half ounces of white bread costing 2.5 cents; five ounces of corn- 

 meal costing 1 cent; nine and a half ounces of potatoes costing 2.5 cents; 

 one head of cabbage costing 10 cents; five bananas costing 10 cents. The 

 idea of the display was to show the economy of using certain foods during 

 a period of high priced groceries and food products. 



In a corner of the agricultural building the American manufacturers 

 who make starch, sugar, oil, etc., from corn have an exhibit. It is very 

 interesting to see with your own eyes the things which are actually made 

 from corn in a commercial way. It is hard to believe that such sub- 

 stances as oil, sugar and rubber may be made from corn, and yet in this 

 exhibit you may see them for yourself. 



Fourteen individual farms have exhibits this year. These are good 

 exhibits, showing much enterprise on the part of the farmers exhibiting. 

 Nevertheless we wonder if the trouble of getting together such an exhibit 

 is really worth while. It takes infinite pains and care to get together 

 good samples of the different cereals, tie them up neatly, and arrange 

 them in a nice manner. The result is good to look at, but from an 

 educational standpoint is worthless. Some of it is good artistically, but 

 for educational purposes it would be better to have the competing farmers 

 make diagrams of their farms, indicating the rotation, the average yields, 

 methods of fertilizing the soil and feeding the stock, method of marketing, 

 and the net income. A score card could be drawn up to apply to a 

 competition of this sort. 



